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23 Years Of The Open Source 'FreeDOS' Project (linuxjournal.com)
Jim Hall is celebrating the 23rd birthday of the FreeDOS Project, calling it "a major milestone for any free software or open-source software project," and remembering how it all started. An anonymous reader quotes Linux Journal:
If you remember Windows 3.1 at the time, it was a pretty rough environment. I didn't like that you could interact with Windows only via a mouse; there was no command line. I preferred working at the command line. So I was understandably distressed in 1994 when I read via various tech magazines that Microsoft planned to eliminate MS-DOS with the next version of Windows. I decided that if the next evolution of Windows was going to be anything like Windows 3.1, I wanted nothing to do with it... I decided to create my own version of DOS. And on June 29, 1994, I posted an announcement to a discussion group... Our "PD-DOS" project (for "Public Domain DOS") quickly grew into FreeDOS. And 23 years later, FreeDOS is still going strong! Today, many people around the world install FreeDOS to play classic DOS games, run legacy business software or develop embedded systems...
FreeDOS has become a modern DOS, due to the large number of developers that continue to work on it. You can download the FreeDOS 1.2 distribution and immediately start coding in C, Assembly, Pascal, BASIC or a number of other software development languages. The standard FreeDOS editor is quite nice, or you can select from more than 15 different editors, all included in the distribution. You can browse websites with the Dillo graphical web browser, or do it "old school" via the Lynx text-mode web browser. And for those who just want to play some great DOS games, you can try adventure games like Nethack or Beyond the Titanic, arcade games like Wing and Paku Paku, flight simulators, card games and a bunch of other genres of DOS games.
On his "Open Source Software and Usability" blog, Jim says he's been involved with open source software "since before anyone coined the term 'open source'," and first installed Linux on his home PC in 1993. Over on the project's blog, he's also sharing appreciative stories from FreeDOS users and from people involved with maintaining it (including memories of early 1980s computers like the Sinclair ZX80, the Atari 800XL and the Coleco Adam). Any Slashdot readers have their own fond memories to share?
FreeDOS has become a modern DOS, due to the large number of developers that continue to work on it. You can download the FreeDOS 1.2 distribution and immediately start coding in C, Assembly, Pascal, BASIC or a number of other software development languages. The standard FreeDOS editor is quite nice, or you can select from more than 15 different editors, all included in the distribution. You can browse websites with the Dillo graphical web browser, or do it "old school" via the Lynx text-mode web browser. And for those who just want to play some great DOS games, you can try adventure games like Nethack or Beyond the Titanic, arcade games like Wing and Paku Paku, flight simulators, card games and a bunch of other genres of DOS games.
On his "Open Source Software and Usability" blog, Jim says he's been involved with open source software "since before anyone coined the term 'open source'," and first installed Linux on his home PC in 1993. Over on the project's blog, he's also sharing appreciative stories from FreeDOS users and from people involved with maintaining it (including memories of early 1980s computers like the Sinclair ZX80, the Atari 800XL and the Coleco Adam). Any Slashdot readers have their own fond memories to share?
Does it run GNUlinix?
That fart was on BULB. Anus was dilated a long time...
The difference is that FreeDOS actually works.
I remember buying a computer and to save money I bought it with Open DOS on it. Mainly because I would go on to use it to test many OS including Linux and Windows. But I never found Open DOS to be that useful? Back in the day couple decades ago yes, but today not so much.
C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUNDOS.RUN
8.3 character filenames
CON, COM, LPT "files"
EMM386.EXE and HIMEM.SYS, trying to get the "right" mix of EMS, XMS and Conventional memory for games.
Using dos "edit" or qbasic.exe for editing and running basic programs.
QuickBasic 4.5
Dos "Extenders" and 32-bit "flat" mode.
SMARTDRV.EXE to cache my drives.
"VESA" bios "extensions"...
setting the "BLASTER" environment variable "A220 I5 D1 T1"
Using the crappy "dblspace" program.. nothing but a fancy wrapper for pkzip
pkzip. lha, arj, unarj...
zmodem...
chkdsk, fdisk, and good old "format c:"
master, slave, 40 vs 80 pin IDE cables.
HD vs SD floppy disks.
ZIP drives, parallel ports, "real" serial ports, RS-232 electrical signalling levels
null modem cables
IPX/SPX network drives
10BaseT, CoAX networking, with terminators.
DesQview
Mouse Drivers, different ones for every mouse protocol out there.
MS-DOS "Executive"
And now, with a Raspberry Pi, or any "crap" PC that I find, I can run anything, with out worrying about memory limits, XMS, EMS, Conventional memory, extenders, IRQ's DMAs, Ports,
I do miss some things:
-5 second reboots
-no firmware updates for everything
-bare-metal programming
-Knowing all the hardware in my PC, no EFI, or Hidden Intel-ME firmware
Ralph Brown's Interrupt List..
Trying assembly language programming...
Calling interrupt 0x13h when I wanted 0x10h ,learning the difference between "set cursor position" and "format track" the hard way..
Learning about backups
DOS was awesome!
-No product activation
-No telemetry
-no copy protection
-no registry
-no DRM [ Digital Restrictions Management ]
FreeDOS should backport telemetry, DRM. copy protection, registries, and DRM.
My memory must be faulty.
I distinctly remember being able to ALT-TAB between Program Manager and other windows. I also remember while in Program Manager being able open a DOS window from an icon. But why would I when I just wanted to run Word Perfect 5.1 and didn't need Program Manager running to do that?
Don't forget that MS-DOS wasn't the only player out there. Remember IBM-DOS and DR-DOS?
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Donald?
How about 4DOS? Can I run pollyshell under freedos? Pollyshell was an implementation of unix commands under DOS. 4DOS was a command shell replacement that was smaller, faster, and had more features than MS-DOS. I loved the comandline history and editor that we take for granted today but was so freaking cool "in the day".
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
I mean, things always progressed very slowly on FreeDOS, so the sooner the better.
With the WinTel duopoly showing the first signs of crumbling, maybe it's time to think of an ARM port... so it'll be ready by 2027 or so... when Intel will certainly be taking a serious beating from ARM chips.
Unlike Trump DOS doesnâ(TM)t grab women by the pussy!
That was under MS Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11 and higher, where you would start multiple MS-DOS shell
Original MS-DOS 5.0 to 6.23 didn't have any ALT-TAB without Windows 3.x installed.
Abort, Retry, Fail?_
Now and then a customer needs something that only runs in DOS but have had their old Pentium III box die on them. FreeDOS will almost always run their application on newer hardware. It’s been a lifesaver!!
I mean, take MS-DOS 5 from 26 years ago... Would Microsoft try to claim licensing of it? Or IBM with PC-DOS? I seriously doubt it. Which brings my next question:
Anyone knows in which way FreeDOS is better than the official retail ones? Take the obvious "but man, it's free" part, what advantages are left?
Free DOS has been a savior when you need a BIOS update and the vendor only gives an image loaded with some DOS executable.
But hillary's emails!
"run legacy business software"
It's been more than 20 years. What software would that be?
I remember when computers and the Internet was filled with real computer users, i.e. nerds. Those were good times.
And then companies, marketing, data mining, governments and hackers arrived and ruined it.
#DeleteFacebook
Well, it has saved the life of an old bit of kit from HP for me. I have an HP16500A logic analyser, that accepts analog acquisition cards as well. I bought one, only to find that the boot diskette for the machine didn't have the right code for the analog card. The code is all available online for download ..
Of course, they are not regular diskettes - they run 77 tracks, not 80. A DOS utility called LIFUTIL is used to write diskettes in the correct format. Only runs on DOS or Windows up to Win95 - no WINE I am afraid. My Win95 machine has finally bitten the dust, so I had to boot Linux on an older machine with a diskette drive, hook it onto the network, create a DOS partition, install FreeDOS on it, push the files to write onto the diskette into the DOS partition, boot FreeDOS, run LIFUTIL to write the diskettes and try them out on the HP.
I had to have a little lie down when it all worked first time. I have to say, that being able to run a DOS program that writes diskettes in some unnatural format is a great test of compatibility, and I was delighted to find FreeDOS; needless to say I will retain a GRUB Boot record for it, just in case for the future.
Most companies like GoG use DosBox for the purpose of distributing DOS based games with however.
DOSBox is an *emulator* (like VirtualBox and VMWare).
It provide some minimalist subset of DOS (like the above mentionned provide their own BIOS and/or EFI implementation).
But that's far from a full MS-DOS compatible environment. If you need anything DOSBOX's bare minimum (which is essentially just a minimalistic shell) you need FreeDOS (e.g.: MORE command)
For games that don't immediately take over the hardware and control it with BIOS calls and straight IO ports banging (i.e.: anything that uses a complicated .BAT launcher), you'll need extra parts and Free DOS is a nice source for you to get them.
(So DOSBox should be compared to FreeDOS, but instead to FreeDOS' kernel and a few critical .SYS)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The summary is going on about W3.1 not having a command line? WTF I remember W3 & W3.1 both having an MS-DOS Prompt option
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Abort, Retry, Fail?_
Thats what your mother said.....
Even now it's not as compatible as MSDOS 6.22. Try running an old memory manager like QEMM386 or 386MAX. It would sometimes crash.
The first time I networked two of my own computers together it was from FreeDOS to Linux. It had to have been around 1997. I couldn't afford network cards, so I got a null-parallel cable, and connected them using PLIP (Parallel Line Internet Protocol) (like SLIP, but a byte at a time instead of a bit). The Linux machine then acted as a gateway connecting to the Internet using a modem and PPP. I was impressed that I had a TCP/IP stack in DOS.
PLIP was pretty quick at copying files between the two machines, much faster than my Internet connection.
I was doing a bit of assembly lately. Something crashes, I get a coredump and can inspect it.
O how different DOS was, with no protection whatsoever and the need for third-party libraries to get to and use protected mode. The "usual" stuff was rather monstrous, but luckily I'd found something cobbled together in assembly by someone in the demo scene, which was faster and much smaller to boot.
But that lack of protection was the real killer. All those reboots! Yes, they were relatively fast, once I got around to nuking most everything from start-up, then forgot to put back when I was done with the assembly. In comparison, coredumps are so much nicer.
Yes, FreeDOS is useful for all those cases where you need "DOS" but don't want to be stuck with proprietary crap. (I somewhat regret not keeping a copy of the DRDOS source from when it was freely available.) But I really don't miss the DOS days. In fact, it merely reminds me the crap we put up with. Amazingly (ObXref systemd) we still put up with insane crap, when we could be building something better.
The command prompt for Windows was DOS. Windows was loaded ON TOP of DOS.
Meanwhile, Reece Sellin is still raging about his destruction of his Freedows project.
I imagine there were many under his name, but the one on the shelf behind me (covered in dust, I just moved it now to see it, though it's been stationary for 15+ years) is called "The New Peter Norton Programmer's Guide To The IBM PC & PS/2", second edition, dated 1988.
Back in the mid-1990s, I bought my first PC. My friend (who lived across the country then) and I discovered "Doom" and the joy of death-matching each other directly over dial-up modems (at about $10 an hour of long-distance phone charges, if I recall).
.. So we had to manually restore the files one by one over the phone per my instructions. Idiot.
We used to share new maps with via floppy disk through the postal mail. Being a programmer, I studied DOS and wrote a computer "cold" that infected his PC (via DOS batch files) when he installed one of the maps I sent so that it would lock up his computer on his birthday, displaying a "Happy birthday!" message.
Weeks later, he calls me at three in the morning demanding I restore his computer to functionality. I told him to take that map disk and run the fixer tool that I put on there. He had already missed placed it in his sloppy apartment..
have systemd?
Only LUDDITES use LUDDITE computers. Modern app appers use Appdows 10 on app apping devices!
Apps!
Meaning you can have extended filenames in DOS, support for USB media devices. generic CD-ROM support, etc.
Pretty much the only thing it WON'T do is run microsoft products on top that check for microsoft specific features (Windows 3.11+ I believe. 2.0, 3.0 etc should work however.)
Having used FreeDOS within the past year or two I can vouch for it handling modems, sound cards, and ethernet all fine, with legacy ODI drivers,you can even run Realtek hardware up to the 8169 era gigabit ethernet cards under freedos with TCP/IP support (They use the Watts DOS TCP/IP stack. No integrated IPX support sadly, but Novell support will run atop it if you have netware and/or the DOS client software.)
While it may be limited for current multi-core processors, GPT, and files bigger than 4 gig (could be remedied with support for a non-FAT filesystem, but the added complexity would lose you those 'fast boot times' and 'low memory usage', with a nice x86 SoC, ~512-3 gigs of RAM, and a real hard disk (flash burns up too fast, especially for legacy DOS apps which constantly sync to disk.) it would still make an awesome base system for 99 percent of what people do today, with a file manager, GUI, and even graphical web browser if needed. Pretty much the only things it wouldn't deal with well are >4 gig files and newer partition formats, both of which could be remedied, although due to patents not by supporting exfat sadly :(
[23 years] ... a major milestone for any free software or open-source software project
gcc, 1987, ~30 years old
X11, 1987, ~29 years old.
GNU HURD, 1990, ~27 years old (and lol)
Linux (kernel) 1991, ~26 years old
386BSD -> NetBSD and FreeBSD, 1992, 1993; ~25 years old
But 23 years is a nice accomplishment.
Windows 3.1 had the 'DOS box' (subtly different from starting programs from plain MS-DOS), but the MacIntosh had no command line; the Newton (called 'iPad' or 'iPhone' these days) did not even have a keyboard.
Nah. Hilarious Hillary..
&&
You see, I understand the meaning of each of those words individually. When you combine them however, they cease to make any sense.
Perhaps there is a mistake?
How about C Sharp? Does it support C Sharp?
Seems like a waste of neurons that I still remember entering G=C800:5 from DEBUG to run the low-level format utility on the hard drive controller ROM.
Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
Congratulations on being the OS choice for prebuilt PCs, before customers or their friend pirate Windows and installs it.